


Everything is Not Okay

by NikitaDreams



Category: Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-18 15:08:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10619481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikitaDreams/pseuds/NikitaDreams
Summary: This story is sort of my own little fix-it for F8. An AU version of the 8th movie focusing heavily on Dom and Letty their motivations and no completely unwanted surprises. What could make Dom work for the other side? Romance, Action and mature content! Minor spoilers from the film though AU as stated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fix-it fic for F8. This starts off in Cuba. There are minor spoilers from the movie however this is AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I edited this fic because the intro I wrote wasn't working with the changes I have been making to the plot. So that may become a stand alone eventually and now this will be the first chapter.

_Cuba_

“So wait, when did you guys get hitched?”

“Let’s see,” Letty muttered, shading her eyes from the late-afternoon sun. She was settled across a picnic-style table from a man with a warm, welcoming grin on his broad face. Despite being related to Dom on his mother’s side, the other man didn’t bear much resemblance to him. “What year is it again?”

“Very funny,” Dom put in at her side. “2011.”

“Damn,” Fernando shook his head. “Five years for you to get around to the honeymoon, cuz, seriously?”

“There were some road blocks,” Dom replied. “But we got here all the same.” He slung his arm around Letty who offered him a wry smile.

It was hard not to think about how much time they’d lost. Two years of thinking her dead, three years where she was there and yet… not complete. And now, they were finally getting things figured out. Hell, it seemed they had things figured out. 

While they were here in Cuba the house was being renovated. Mostly because it had been blown up, but it didn’t hurt to modernize it a little bit. Sure, they wanted to keep most of the original layout, but there wasn’t anything wrong with a little central air. Especially when living in LA. 

They had jobs, actual jobs as law-abiding citizens. But not boring nine to five jobs. Jobs where they got to use their own very unique talents, along with the rest of their family, and take care of whatever business Mr. Nobody seemed to think needed taking care of. Not many other people could luck out so hard. 

“Yeah well I have to ask what the hell happened to my invite? It get lost in the mail? Five years seems like enough time that would have sorted itself out by now.”

“No one came to the wedding. Even if we’d wanted to invite people it wasn’t like I could go around advertising where I was hiding out,” Dom commented. “Even Mia didn’t go.”

“Yeah and how pissed was she about that one?” Fernando snickered.

“Pretty pissed.”

“No worried, cuz. We got plenty of time while you’re here to make up for it.”

“You do know this is our honeymoon, right? As in, mine and Dom’s. Not your’s,” Letty said, pointing her fork at him.

“Hey, far be it from me to intrude,” Fernando said, grinning over at her. “I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.”

For once, neither Dom nor Letty wanted to know. Fernando was a notorious deadbeat and had always been somewhat of a small-time criminal in Cuba. But he was family, and when it came to the Toretto team that was all that mattered. It didn’t hurt that when they were itching for the local street races he knew just where to go.

A Toretto honeymoon just wouldn’t be complete without cars and a lot of speed.

When they pulled up to the street however, it was a lot different from what they’d see back home. On the streets of LA people would run with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of product beneath the hoods of their vehicles. Here in Cuba it wasn’t quite that simple. For one thing the US sanctions and trade embargos had kept anything relatively new from Cuban shores since the time of the Cold War. This meant that everything from the cars themselves to the parts under the hood were from a bygone era. In fact, just tooling down the streets one might feel like they’d gone back in time.

But it also meant that the cars that showed up to race wouldn’t have stood a chance against something like Dom’s charger back home, or even some of the floor model cars sold around the world these days.

But maybe there was something purer about that. When it came down to just the basics. Just you and the car.

“So, you racing?” Dom asked his cousin.

“Well… you see I was sort of hoping-”

“Here it comes,” Letty said.

“Hey, hey. I haven’t even finished talking.”

“You want Dom to race for you,” she went on.

“Well I… how did you-”

“Because you made some stupidass bet and you’re afraid you’re gonna lose.”

“Hey now… that’s-”

“What stupidass bet did you make, Fernando?” Dom asked.

______________________________

They’d spend most of the morning just enjoying Cuba. Driving around the streets in their borrowed Cruiser felt like a throwback to another era. Not just the cars but the streets and buildings in much of the city harkened to a time long past. At times the streets had the feel of old colonial life, but at others modern Cuba shone through.

Cruising down the street in the convertible they enjoyed the pleasant weather. People around them were dressed to combat the heat - some ready for the beach. Lunch was enjoyed by the shore with a view of the ocean. The smell of salt air and sand, the sound of music playing from the speakers of a local’s car - bass turned up too high. The seafood was fresh, the view fabulous and the company perfect. It wasn’t often these days they got to spend time just the two of them. True, Mia and Brian had their own place now - for their growing family, but it seemed between the garage, the team and their work for Mr. Nobody there was always some demand on their time. These past few days had been just what they needed.

The race Fernando had set them up for was taking place on the West end of the city. A cordoned off stretch of road that was normally one lane in each direction. They’d blocked off any traffic that might end up out this way late at night, turning it into a clear straightaway for drag racing.

The guy Dom was driving against had managed to make something of a name for himself in the street racing scene, at least around here. He was young and full of attitude in a way that Letty said was familiar. It wasn’t that Dom didn’t see the similarities to his younger self. It was more that he didn’t want to think about how old he was getting.

They lined up at the start, which someone had marked off. Cars were gathered around, parked along the sides of the road, crammed onto the shoulder and off onto the gravel and dirt that made up the stretches of abandoned land. It was dark here, but the bright headlights of the other vehicles illuminated the makeshift track. An older man with a dark beard trimmed close to his face and a faded t-shirt came up to the start, lifting a small white flag into the air. The drivers readied their cars, engines rumbling as they waited for the signal.

They pulled off the line with a squeal of tires and the roar of engines. Dom hit the clutch, kicking it up into gear as he picked up speed. He was focused, serious. This wasn’t his car, but it didn’t matter. He could feel the road beneath him, hear the air rush past as the engine hummed with power. The rush of the race never got old. And no matter the car, it felt like it was a part of him. Like an extension of himself, blood pumping through metal and oil rushing through his veins.

The competition was a good driver, but Dom was better. Few people were able to challenge him on the road. It sounded more than a little egotistical but it was also true.

When he was in the zone, driving, everything slowed down and Dom felt as if time stood still. His focus narrowed to him and the car. Nothing else mattered at that moment. Not anything.

The other driver had been creeping up alongside him most of the race. These were old cars. They weren’t fitted with nitrous or any sort of speed boost abilities.Here it was simply a test of the skill of a driver. Not that the car didn’t make a difference, Dom thought as he shifted gears again. Both vehicles were classics, which was all well and good. The problem came down to what was under the hood. Oh there were certainly racers who smuggled parts in, but the majority of what was going into these vehicles had been reclaimed from somewhere else. The engine in Fernando’s car sure as hell hadn’t been under the hood when it had first been produced, shipped to Cuba and bought by someone’s grandfather. These racers made the most of what they had here, and that ingenuity could go a long way. Especially with the right driver behind the wheel.

Dom grinned as he pressed down on the clutch, shifting gears. It was all good to him. He preferred a classic car anyway. Old-fashioned American muscle.

The engine roared, the car filled with the sound of tires on pavement. He could just see the shape of the other car in the far peripheral of his vision, but he ignored it, focusing on the finish line up ahead. Half a car length might seem like plenty of lead, but you didn’t win until you won. And if you celebrated beforehand you just made a fool out of yourself. 

He wasn’t nervous, but he was focused. There was always the thrill of the race, that little adrenaline burst. The danger was real for a number of reasons. You could get caught by the cops and picked up. You could lose control of your car and crash. Something could go wrong with the vehicle, or the other guy’s car. But those things weren’t why Dom got an adrenaline rush during a race. It was the thrill of the win, the chance of losing. That was what kept bringing him back to the races.

That same thrill when he shot over the finish line to the sounds of cheers around him, grin tugging across his face as he caught sight of his cousin scooping Letty up in a tight hug with a whoop of delight. Was there really ever any doubt that Dom would win? And yet there was always that little bit - hence the thrill.  
_______________________________________

“You know,” Fernando said. “You’re lucky.”

“I know,” Dom agreed, taking a long drink of his beer. They sat together on the old porch on the front of Fernando’s little house. The wood was cracked and weathered and there were no chairs so they’d settled on the steps. This time of night it was dark out here. The few streetlights seemed to work only half the time. The house across the way was abandoned, but the one next door was newly renovated, looking far too large and pristine on the old block. The sounds of the city were distant, replaced by the faint chirping of crickets and the occasional barking of a dog.

“You got it all. Even when you thought you’d lost it. Somehow everything worked out,” his cousin added, a little sigh in his voice.

“Well not like it didn’t take a little work, but yeah. Life is good.” Dom nodded.

They sat in silence for a moment, enjoying their beers, the quiet stillness of the night all around them.

“You think a little bit of that luck will rub off on me?”

“What?” Dom laughed. “Why would you ask that?”

There was a long awkward moment, Fernando shifting in his seat. He sighed, stretching out his legs.

“There was a woman.”

Dom chuckled. “What else? Isn’t there always?”

“This was different.” At his cousin’s serious tone, Dom sobered. “It was crazy and intense but it wasn’t just a fling. But you know, she’s in this world too, only worse. Deeper in. With the wrong kind of people.”

“What happened?”

“She got pregnant.”

“Shit.” Dom dragged a hand over his face. “And what did you do?”

“Got her out. Paid this tech big bucks, like, a lot. Got her a new name and everything.”

“So that’s good right? She’s safe.”

“That’s the problem,” Fernando sighed. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“We had everything ready to go. Bags packed. We booked a flight. The morning I wake up and she’s gone. Just disappeared.”

“You sure she didn’t just cut out? Ghost on you?” Dom asked.

“I’m sure because of this.” Fernando produced his cell phone, passing it over to Dom who took it, dark gaze moving over the image on the screen.

The woman photographed was pretty, but in a rough sort of way. She was sitting, staring at the camera with a mullish set to her jaw. Her eyes were hard bright flints staring out from her tanned face. So bright as to be startling. Her blonde hair was curled to her shoulders, one stray lock falling across her brow. She was sitting with her arms cross in front of her pregnant belly, on a cheap folding chair. It was hard to tell where she was, but the darkened room contained a wall of tiny green and red lights behind her. Much like one might find on computers. 

Dom passed the phone back. “Where did this come from?” he asked his cousin.

“The hacker we paid to help us,” Fernando admitted. “Along with a message. I got the text not long after I woke up and found Tamar missing. You see we sort of…” he hesitated, rubbing a hand over his head.

“Oh, no. Don’t tell me you tried to play this woman,” Dom groaned. “Fernando, I came here on my honeymoon. Not to get pulled into your bullshit.”

“But Dom, you have to help me. We didn’t have the money. She wanted so much. We did everything we could, called in every favor, but we were still short. So we… added some counterfeit bills to the packs. We mixed it all up with the real money. So we thought… we’d be out of the country before she found it out.”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Dom muttered. “So how much are you short? We’ll pay her off and get Tamar back.”

“It’s… not that easy,” Fernando sighed. “She wants more.”

“How much? We have money.”

“Something else. Somehow… she knows who you are. And she wants to meet with you.”

“With me? Why?” Dom frowned, closing his eyes. “Shit. What are you getting me into?”

“I don’t know. Look, you don’t have to tell Letty anything yet. Just meet with her and see what she wants. We’ll… figure something out. You have connections, right?”

Dom thought of Hobbs, Mr. Nobody, of Ramsay and the rest of the team. He certainly had connections, people he could go to. Depending on just what this woman his cousin was in trouble with had to say. 

“Fine.” Dom stood up, drinking down the rest of his beer in a long swig. He hadn’t asked for this shit. On the one hand, he wanted to take Letty far away from all of this and make sure she got the honeymoon she deserved. After all the problems they’d faced to get here, they deserved some time to be happy. But on the other hand… Fernando was family. And he couldn’t leave family in a lurch. Even if the timing was shitty. Unbelievably shitty.

“Tomorrow is our last day here. Arrange a meeting for tomorrow night. I’m going to enjoy the rest of the time with my wife.”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks Dom. It means a lot that you’re-”

“You’re family,” Dom interrupted. “We always watch out for family. With any luck I’ll have your girl back in a few days.”

“Yeah… I hope so.”

Dom hoped so too, though he had a bad feeling that his cousin was about to get him tangled up in a mess he didn’t want to be a part of. He couldn’t shake it as he walked back through the house towards the room he was sharing with Letty. He knew he should tell her about what was going on, and he would. If it amounted to anything. 

He pushed the conversation from his mind as he opened the door to see his wife sitting on the bed back to the door. She still wore her clothes from earlier and he could see from the cell sitting next to her that she’d probably been on the phone. Perhaps her weekly call to Mia, or checking in with the garage while they were away from LA.

“Hey,” he said, closing the door behind him.

She turned her head, smiling. “Hey.”

“Checking in with Hector?”

“Nah,” she said. “He’ll call if there’s anything. Mia rang. Wanted to know how it’s going. She keeps texting me to send pictures, like we take any.”

“I take pictures.”

“Dom, she doesn’t want those kinds of pictures.”

They shared a laugh as he settled alongside her on the bed.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and Letty leaned into him, his fingers tangling in her hair. 

“You know,” he muttered. “I’m sort of regretting not shelling out for another couple nights at the hotel.”

Letty laughed, shifting on the bed to face him better. “Well,” she said. “We’re alone right now. Do you really have anything to complain about?”

He grinned, wrapping his arms around her to pull her into his lap. “Not a thing,” he answered, drawing her close for a slow kiss. Holding her, all the other troubles and concerns left his mind. In this moment he was just a man on his honeymoon with the love of his life. After everything they were finally here. Together, whole, happy. It was something to focus on. Not go looking for the next problem.

Dom drew Letty with him as he laid back on the bed, his arms wrapped around her. He took his time just kissing her, holding her close so that he could feel every inch of her body against his. She leaned over him, the dark curls of her hair falling around her face and brushing against his cheek. He lifted his hands to sweep fingers through the soft strands, cradling her jaw as their kisses deepened. When he drew back his lungs were burning for air and her lips were stung red. Her dark eyes glazed with desire. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss against her throat, tasting her raging pulse as she shifted against him, fingers curling into the hem of his t-shirt.

She sat up to tug it up and over his head, tossing it aside carelessly. His hands dropped to her hips, fingers skimming along the edge of the little shorts she wore to stroke the silky skin of her thighs. Letty shifted above him, eyes dark as she reached down to tug her top over her head, baring a scrap of black satin and lace. His eyes roved, hands gunning for the firm curve of her ass as she ground her hips down against his. She cupped his face and leaned down. This time the kiss was more charged, her teeth grazing his lips, tongues sliding together, sharing the same panting breaths every time they drew apart.

Her hands slid over his bare chest, nails trailing along his stomach before her fingers found the button of his fly. Practiced motions made quick work of that and the zipper, and she lifted herself on her knees to tug the jeans down until he kicked them away. Dom rolled them, splaying her on her back on the mattress as he held himself above her. His lips trailed a path down the line of her throat, over the soft swell of her breasts. He traced the lacy edge of her bra with his tongue before reaching back to release the catch of the garment, sliding the straps from her shoulders. Letty smiled up at him, her eyes dark with emotion and arousal, cheeks flushed and lips pink. She reached for the fastening of her own shorts, undoing them. Her thumbs hooked under the waistband she shot him a wicked little grin that had his breath catching in his throat.

He trapped her hands with his larger ones, burying his face against her chest. Her arms came up around him and she arched up into the path his lips made, tasting the salt of sweat on her skin and the rapid beat of her heart. Dom inched the shorts over the curve of her hips, drawing back from the circle of her arms to work them down her legs. Before he could move back up the bed she was closing the distance between them, catching him off guard to knock him back, her hands splayed against his chest as she perched above him. He laughed, hands sliding up her thighs to trace over the lace of her underwear, palms curving against her backside to press her hips down as she rocked against him. The motion drew a breathless gasp from her, a low groan rumbling in his chest as Letty leaned down to close the distance between them, until their bodies were molded together. As tight as they were, she could feel the beat of his heart in time with her’s.

Tangled together on the bed they shed the last bits of clothing that kept them from one another, rolling across bunched sheets she rose above him, the light of the moon painting her dusky skin silvery in the dark room. Her eyes seemed to shine when they met his, her fingers twining through his as she lifted her hips, sinking down to take him in. He roved her with his eyes as she arched above him, hands caught in hers. Their breaths and sounds mingled in the humid air as she drew out their pleasure until he thought he might go mad. Dom rolled them, pinning her to the mattress. Letty’s laugh was caught against his mouth as he kissed her, his hands sliding down to tilt her hips until he was rewarded with her low moan. His hand was a brand against her thigh as she wrapped her legs around him.

They moved together, the bed starting to shake beneath them as Dom’s hips took a more desperate pace. Letty curled her fingers into his shoulders, biting her lower lip to stifle her cries as they strained together, crashing over that peak as her body clamped tightly around his. Those trembles echoed for long moments afterward, awareness creeping back into their senses as their breaths panted out between them. 

With a wordless murmur they rearranged themselves on the bed until they were side-by-side, Letty’s head pillowed against his shoulder. Dom’s arms came around her, eyes closing. He tried to hold on to the sweet feeling of her pressed tightly against him, the warmth of her breath feathering over his shoulder. His fingers trailed idly through her hair, eyes wandering up to focus on the ceiling above. He tried not to worry about what sort of trouble his cousin had gotten himself into. Somehow everything would work out, wouldn’t it?

“You’ve got something on your mind,” Letty said from beside him and he nearly startled, turning to offer her a smile.

“It’s nothing.”

“If it’s nothing why you thinking about it now?” she asked, propping herself up a little to gaze down at him, a small smile tugging at her mouth.

He sighed, fingers trailing along the line of her jaw. “Just thinking about us,” he said. “About the future.”

She smiled. “Oh? Something in particular you have in mind? Or just thinking about the next job? Hmm… the next thrill ride?”

Dom laughed. “I thought that was you. Mrs. Adrenaline Rush.”

She wound her arms around his shoulders. “I guess I am. Maybe I won’t always be. But for now, the rush is good. You and me. The next job.” She pressed a kiss against his mouth. “You knew that, right?”

“Of course,” he agreed. There was a part of him that thought about the future with her. A family, maybe. But there was also a part of him that acknowledged it as a bad idea with the way they were. Their lives were dangerous and no child deserved to be robbed of one or more parents because they did something stupid. Wasn’t that why he’d told Brian to pull back from it all? That kind of future wasn’t just around the corner. They wouldn’t be able to do this shit forever though, so it was a possible future.

“I mean I’m not writing it off eventually,” she said. “Just don’t start daydreaming about nurseries just yet, Dominic.” 

She smirked at him and he laughed, wrapping his arms around her for a deep kiss. Just like that his mood felt lightened. Everything would work out.

___________________________________

It almost seemed there was a chill in the air that night when Dom left his cousin’s place, door clapping shut behind him with a sort of finality. He was really going to meet this woman. All without letting his wife know what was going on.

But it wasn’t like that. And if he was lucky it would be the end of it tonight. He’d explain to Letty (she’d probably still be pissed) but after a short time it would all be behind them.

Tamar would be safe. Fernando would be happy.

If he wasn’t lucky then things would get more complicated. But he’d tell Letty either way. When shit went bad it was always his team he turned to. His family. 

The meeting place Fernando had given him wasn’t too far away. A local fishing supply store. Closed at this time of night, the parking lot sat empty. Dom pulled up.

A nearby street lamp flickered.

He cut the engine, listening to the sound of the waves crashing against a nearby retaining wall. Far in the distance there was a siren, the faint musical beats from a party. Even so, the night felt still as death.

It was the sound of gravel beneath tires that had Dom turning his head. The car that pulled up was too modern to blend in here. Clearly someone with access to a lot of money. It pulled up alongside him and parked.

He waited for long moments, tense, as the vehicle sat, dark and still in the lot. He couldn’t see anyone through the tinted windows, especially not in this light. Then, finally, the driver’s side door opened and a figure stepped out. Dom took that as his cue to do the same, straightening up to see Fernando’s so-called cyber-criminal in front of him.

The woman didn’t look like he was expecting, though Dom supposed he should have learned to expect the unexpected by now. She was admittedly beautiful, but she had a hard look about her, like flint. She didn’t smile, but Dom got the feeling that if she did she would look like a shark. 

There was something illicit about lying to Letty and meeting with a strange woman. It made him feel wrong, even though he knew he was only doing it to help his cousin.

“What do you want?” he asked, after he and the blonde had a moment to size each other up.

She smiled. It was shark-like, as expected. “You,” she said.

“I’m not for sale,” he replied. “My cousin owes you money. I’ll make up the difference, and you’ll let the girl go.”

“The deal’s changed,” she told him. “I know who you are and what you can do, Dominic Toretto. So I want you.”

“Pretend I’m considering,” he said, glaring at her. “What exactly are you asking for?”

She laughed. “A partnership, of sorts. I need a driver with your skills. I’ve got plans and I can’t do it alone. And… thanks to you, my old go-to is in a high security prison that even I won’t touch. Luck for me… another opportunity has fallen into my lap.”

“And if I say not interested?” he asked.

“You won’t,” she replied. “Because I have leverage.”

“Tamar,” Dom muttered. “I don’t even know her.”

“She’s still family, and so is that baby she’s carrying.”

He grit his teeth, hands curled into fists. 

“And don’t think about getting anyone else involved,” she continued. “Because I have even more leverage than that.”

She turned away to get something from the car behind her. Dom watched, thinking about simply grabbing her and hauling her in so Hobbs could deal with her. But there was no guarantee she would talk. Tamar could be locked away somewhere without food or water. She could be in danger. Also, he had to find out about this other thing she claimed to have. Was his family in danger? Letty? Mia and the kids? What could make her so sure he’d agree to help her?

The woman withdrew a sleek looking tablet and turned, passing it to Dom.

Now, he wasn’t up on the latest tech if it had nothing to do with cars, but Dom recognized the display in front of him. He recognized it because it was the God’s Eye. The very tech Ramsey had created. That they had liberated from terrorists because of the danger it posed. And now it was in the hands of this woman. A woman who’d should she wasn’t above manipulation to get what she wanted. And she was manipulating him.

They both knew it.

“What is it you want?” he asked. 

“You to join me,” she answered. “And I want to believe it. I want your team to believe it.”

He set his teeth, eyes narrowed. “What’s the point of that?”

“Insurance,” she replied, taking the tablet from him. “You can’t turn on me if you’re all alone. If your family abandons you.”

“You think they will?”

“You’ll make sure they do,” she told him. “Because I hold their lives in my hands. You’d be amazed how easy it is to explain a rogue drone strike these days.” She smiled and it made Dom feel unpleasant.

“Wouldn’t want anything to happen to that cute little niece and nephew you have. Or your wife,” she went on. “Braga and his crew were amateurs. When I set out to eliminate someone, I don’t fail.”

“You’re threatening my family,” he told her. “That’s not going to make me loyal to you.”

“But you’ll make them believe you are,” she said. “Until I’m all you have left. Either way you end up alone, Dom. But at least this way they get to live.”

Dom turned away, hands curled into fists as he debated laying into the woman then and there. But she was too smart to chance it. In a bind like this the first people he’d turn to were his family. But if he did they were as good as dead. He didn’t know if he could get help from anyone. Even tapping Mr. Nobody and his resources could mean certain doom for the people he loved.

What she was asking him to do would hurt. It would hurt them and it would hurt him. But at least they’d be safe. He’d have time to figure something out.

“You have until Tuesday.” Her voice interrupted his thoughts. “I know you have a job. I’ll send coordinates. If you’re not there you know the consequences.” She got back into her car.

Dom stood there for long moments after she drove away, his mind a turmoil. But no matter what way he turned it around in his head, no matter how wrong it made him feel, one thing was for certain. 

He was going to do it.


	2. Chapter 2

_Berlin_

Dom was more tense than usual the night they hit the base for Hobbs, set to retrieve some expensive piece of hardware or other that had fallen into the wrong hands. Of course, these particular hands were masquerading under the guise of local law enforcement. A dirty operation under a corrupt ruler. 

He was certain he’d done everything he could. Everything he didn’t think Cipher would catch. It was going to have to do, because he was out of time and he was about to be alone, totally.

It wasn’t a feeling he was used to having. He’d always been surrounded by his team, by his family.

The last time he’d felt alone had been over a year ago now, back when he’d thought Letty dead. He hadn’t really been alone, and yet… he had been. He’d tried to fill the gaping hole in his heart but Elena had been little more than a distraction at the best of times. And other times she was just something he felt guilty over, because he knew her feelings ran deeper than his own.

But things had changed. His family was whole again. And he was about to jeopardize all of that to save a woman he didn’t even know. 

But it wasn’t within him to sit and do nothing. Especially with the other threats that Cipher had made. 

And this afternoon a text with instructions had arrived from an untraceable number. Along with a picture, bird’s eye view of his sister’s new place in the suburbs. Jack playing in the yard and everything.

He wasn’t going to take any chances.

Which meant that a whole lot of people were about to get real pissed off with him. Of them, he only regretted that he was going to be lying to his wife. He told himself it was to keep her safe but it didn’t make him feel any less guilty about it. About what he was planning to do.

Dom watched his team come into sight as he drove towards the central road where they had planned to regroup. He and Letty had run interference, distracting the base’ security and getting them out of the way so that Hobbs, Ramsey and Tej could infiltrate security for the package.

“You know,” Roman’s voice came through the radio. “I really have to say I am insulted that you guys put me up here as the damn look-out,” he complained. “I ain’t seen a damn thing.”

“Patience, Roman,” Dom replied. “I think the cavalry is about to arrive.”

“Yeah we definitely alerted someone breaking into that safe,” Tej agreed. 

“I thought the plan was to not set off any alarms,” Letty said, pulling up alongside Dom as they made their way towards the exit of the sprawling military base.

“Well we were trying for that,” Ramsey answered. “But our intel didn’t notify of the secondary, silent firewall on their security program.”

“By the time we noticed we’d already tripped the silent alarm,” Tej finished. “So we’d best get out of here before security arrives.”

“Too late,” Roman said, looking through his binoculars. His car was perched on a rise just near the front wall. In the distance he could see half a dozen black SUVs. “They’re coming.”

“Okay Roman,” Tej said. “Remember not to hit the button until I say.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what this thing will do?” Roman asked.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Tej replied. “Just get ready.” He glanced over his shoulder where he could see the SUVs turning down the road after them, picking up speed.

“Ready?” Dom asked, then trusting they were. “Split.”

Almost as one the four cars moved to either side of the road, creating a large space between them.

“Now, Rome!” Tej shouted.

Roman hit the release he’d been given, firing off a loud snap somewhere overhead. “What the fuck is that…?” he muttered, then ducked his head as the car shuddered above him, buffeted by something heavy swinging past. He turned his head to see a massive yellow wrecking ball sailing towards the road his teammates were driving up, straight down the split they’d left. However, their pursuers hadn’t known it was coming anymore than Roman did and there was no time to swerve and avoid. The wrecking ball careened into the first car with the heavy sound of iron meeting the flexible car body. There was the crunch and the screech of aluminum as the front of the first car folded like an accordion, shooting backwards to flip into the cars behind it. The ball kept going, hitting all the successive cars and knocking them into each other. 

Roman whooped as he watched, laughing. “Damn, that was awesome y'all,” he said.

“Rome, don’t you think you should get outta there?” Letty asked. “Before it comes back?”

“What?” Roman started his engine, panicking. “It’s coming back??”

“Well it IS a pendulum,” Tej supplied. Though there’s been sufficient drag and other forces that it… probably won’t come all the way back.”

“Probably??” Rome asked, watching as the ball started swinging back in their direction, knocking the car into reverse as he angled the wheels towards the ramp he’d used to get up here. “I do not like the sound of ‘probably’!”

“Then move your ass,” Hobbs snapped. “We’re out of here.” The big man pressed his gas pedal down, speeding into the lead as they drew closer to the front gate of the facility. The massive wedge front of his vehicle hit the cement wall first, crashing through as intended, clearing away the rubble with the side-scoops so that the rest of the team could follow.

From his perch, Roman caught a glimpse of sirens in the distance as the wrecking ball came sailing back closer to him. Cursing under his breath he pressed on the gas, jetting backwards down the ramp as the heavy metal ball swung up, just barely missing where he had been. 

“Tej!” he shouted, shifting his car into drive and maneuvering towards the main road. “You said it wouldn’t come back!”

“I said probably,” Tej replied. “Didn’t I say probably?”

“Next time you’re pushing the damn button,” Roman told him as he shifted gears to catch up with the team.

“Nice job everyone,” Hobbs’ voice came through. “We’ll split up to lose the rest of these guys and meet up at home base.”

Letty looked over when she felt Dom’s eyes on her. He’d been quiet tonight, tense. Like something was on his mind. “You okay?” she asked, forgoing the radio to talk to him through their open windows.

He met her gaze. “I’ll see you when it’s over,” he told her and she only had a moment of confusion before they were splitting, Dom going one way with Hobbs, while she and the rest of the team took the east road. The cryptic words stuck with her, a sense of trepidation trickling down her spine as she made her way towards the garage where they planned to meet up.

“I think we could all use a cold beer when we get back,” Hobbs told Dom, feeling relaxed as they put more distance between themselves and their pursuers. “I’ll even buy.”

Dom didn’t say anything, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. He pulled up alongside Hobbs. The road stretched out ahead of and behind them, dark and deserted. He took a slow breath, and made a choice.

Dom yanked the wheel hard to the side, his car slamming into the side of Hobbs’ vehicle unexpectedly. The force, and Hobbs’ lack of preparation combined sending the vehicle into a sideways spin, flipping and rolling off the road. It came to a stop finally, upside-down, one side crushed against a tree.

Panting, Hobbs tried to gain his bearings. Everything hurt. He could feel liquid trickling along the side of his head, certain it was blood. He tried to move and found himself pinned, the heavy metal chassis of the vehicle holding him in place. He reached out, trying to lift it off, but he strained and it remained in place. He’d probably need to be cut out.

Shit. He was in trouble.

Hobbs turned to see Dom approaching, his car idling along the shoulder where he’d pulled. He didn’t really think he was there to offer him help.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Toretto?” he demanded.

There was no answer and the man went to the back, wrenching open the trunk with a squeak of metal. Hobbs turned his head but he couldn’t really see what he was doing. However, he could guess.

The hardware they’d just stolen was secured back there.

“You’re making a big mistake,” Hobbs told him. “Don’t do this.”

Dom said nothing, just got back into his own car and drove away. Hobbs could see sirens in the distance. He cursed, reaching for his radio.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said, hesitating a moment. “Dom just… ran me off the road and took the hardware.”

“What?” Letty’s voice came through, sharp with disbelief. He couldn’t blame her. He was plenty surprised himself. There was a moment of silence, then her voice again. “Where are you?”

“There’s no chance you can get to me,” Hobbs said. “Get out of here and stay safe.” The sirens were closer now, red and blue washing over his face. Somewhere he’d made a judgement call on Dominic Toretto, and he was going to have to face the consequences for that. For being so damn wrong.

\--------------------------------------------------

Letty was sitting in the passenger side of her car at the garage, the designated meet-up space they’d arranged. But Hobbs wasn’t coming, and neither was Dom.

He hadn’t answered any of their attempts to reach him, even his cell had rang and rang until it went to voicemail. Everyone was confused, expecting her to know what was going on with him, why he’d done it, but she felt just as lost. She felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Betrayed.

Suddenly his cryptic remark as they’d left the base had taken on some other meaning. Was he asking her to wait for him? Saying that after whatever it was he was doing that he’d be back?

She rubbed a hand over her face, brow furrowing as she reached into the glove compartment of her car. There she found some photographs, taken from their time together in LA. The first of which before she’d gotten her memory back. In them both they’d looked so happy. She pushed them aside, not wanting to linger on it right now. To dwell on the fact that whatever it was Dom was doing he hadn’t thought to clue her in.

Making decisions on his own again. Just like he always had.

And damn if that didn’t hurt.

“Letty, come over here.” Roman’s voice pulled her out of her maudlin thoughts and she pushed herself out of the car, moving over to join him, Tej and Ramsey where they were gathered around a small laptop.

Ramsey had brought up Dom’s cell phone records and they were looking through. She recognized her own number, Mia’s, and even the rest of the team’s. Some of them were Cuban country coded. But there were some that made no sense to Letty. Rows and rows of what seemed to be random numbers and letter jumbled together.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Untraceable numbers,” Ramsey replied, scrolling down the list. “Sophisticated stuff. It means Dom was communicating with someone who knew how to make it impossible to trace them this way. He dials the same outgoing number but we don’t know where it goes.”

Letty frowned, rubbing her hand over her chest, trying to ignore the tightness she was feeling. “How long?”

“Only the last few days,” Ramsey said, glancing up at her. “You didn’t notice anything off about him?”

“No, I…” Letty trailed off, trying to gather her thoughts. “Maybe,” she admitted. “One night, last night we were in Cuba. He went out on a beer run for his cousin. It took way too long and he was weird afterwards. But not like this.”

“What had he been doing the last few days?” Tej asked.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Working on some projects around the garage. Modifying the Charger. It all seemed like stuff for tonight.”

They all fell silent, trying to puzzle out why Dom had done what he’d done. 

“There has to be a reason,” Letty said. The others nodded in agreement but no one said anything else. She wasn’t sure they were all so convinced.

She stood abruptly. “I’ll be back,” she muttered, moving past them to take the set of metal steps that led up to the second story office. Inside the room sat a desk cluttered with papers, an old computer tucked in one corner. She didn’t even know who the place belonged to. Only that Hobbs had arranged for them to use the space.

She closed the door, shutting out the murmuring voices of the others down below. She didn’t want to know what they were saying right now.

Dropping into the chair behind the desk, Letty fished her cell phone out of her pocket with a little sigh. Scrolling through her contacts she hesitated, thumb over Mia’s number before she caved and hit call.

It rang twice before her sister-in-law picked up.

“Letty?” she greeted, and she could almost hear her friend’s smile through the phone. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you again so soon. Honeymoon over?”

Oh boy, was it ever. Letty let out a small sigh. “Yeah… we’re,” she paused. They weren’t exactly home, or even back in the states. The job for Hobbs had taken them out of the country again. And the local law enforcement would probably be looking for them. “We had a job,” she finally said.

“What happened?” Mia asked. “What’s wrong?” 

She’d given something away in the tone of her voice, her uncertainty. But Letty didn’t know what to say now. If she should say anything. The last thing they needed was Brian and Mia getting involved.

“Job went wrong,” Letty explained, without explaining why. “And Dom’s just… not himself.”

“If you don’t know what’s going on with him I’m not sure what help I can be,” Mia said. “But I’ll talk to him if you want…”

“No,” Letty bit down on her lower lip, unable to tell Mia she couldn’t talk to him. That Dom wasn’t even there. That he was the reason the job went wrong in the first place.

“If the job went south could that be what’s getting to him?”

“No,” Letty shook her head, even though Mia couldn’t see her. “It’s something else. Something since just before we left Cuba… Do you… have any idea?”

“Bummed your time together was about to come to an end?” Mia suggested, chuckling a little. “Hell, who knows. Maybe he told Fernando something. If you want I’ll give him a call.”

“Nah, I’ll call him. No need for us to play telephone.” It wasn’t an answer, but it was something she could do. Some direction to move. Rather than sit here, floundering, trying to figure out what was going on in her husband’s head. She never had any problem seeing through him. But she never would have expected this.

“How are things there?” she asked Mia, ready to change the subject, to hear some good news.

“Great. Jack lost another tooth, which he is ecstatic about, and this little one is due any day now…” Letty could picture the way her sister rubbed her belly when she said it and smiled a bit, glad she hadn’t worried the other woman with this shit just yet.

“You ready?”

“More than ready,” Mia groaned. “My feet are so swollen that I can’t even stand for more than a half hour at a time. And every time I sit down I have to elevate them.”

“That sounds… fun,” Letty muttered, relieved not to be in the same boat.

“No it sucks,” Mia laughed. “But it’s so worth it. You’ll see one day.”

“You sound so sure about that,” Letty murmured, getting a faraway look in her eyes. It seemed like a lifetime ago she’d talked about kids with Dom in their room in Cuba. 

“The adrenaline rush can only get you so far, Letty,” Mia told her. “Plus that dangerous shit is going to get a lot harder the more years you put in.”

“Are you calling me old?” Letty demanded.

“No!” Mia laughed. “We’re the same age. But Dom isn’t getting any younger,” she teased. That pulled a small laugh from Letty, who shook her head.

“Who knows, Mi. Anyway, thanks for the talk. I should go. We gotta figure out how to turn this job around. I’ll be in touch.”

“All right. Call any time. Love you, Letty. Give my love to Dom.”

“Will do,” Letty replied before thumbing the hang up button. She stared at the screen a long moment, letting out a tiny sigh. She pushed herself to her feet. It was time to do something productive, because if she sat here wallowing she’d go mad.

\--------------------------------------------------

Cipher’s mobile command center had turned out to be an airplane and it had picked up Dom, car and all, at an airfield not far from the base they’d hit. He put it into park, locking the emergency brake as the cargo bay slid closed, taking a moment to gather himself.

His gut was churning and he felt like shit. Hobbs wasn’t hurt but Dom knew what he’d left him to. He’d seen those sirens in the distance. His actions tonight would cost the man his job and Dom wasn’t certain they could fix it once he’d figured out a way to get his cousin’s family back. 

And none of that even touched on how Letty must be feeling right now. He couldn’t have said much to her. Cipher had eyes on him, all the time. And she had the God’s Eye. But he hoped his wife understood what he’d meant. That he would find a way to get back to her. He hoped she would trust in him.

Pushing aside the worries and trepidation he opened the door of the Charger and stepped out. His boots were heavy against the metal floor and he departed the cargo bay, following his instincts deeper towards the nose of the plane. 

A long hallway took him to what looked like a control room. Computers everywhere, a high tech set-up the likes of which he’d certainly never seen. Not even working with Hobbs had gotten him access to stuff this high end. 

There were several people at work in the room and he caught sight of Cipher standing over one of them, examining the screen in front of her. She turned at the sound of his boots on the floor and smiled. It chased a chill down his spine and stopped him in his tracks.

Another man stood at attention, taller than Dom with a head full of red hair and a tidy beard to match. He stepped in between them, eyes narrowed suspiciously. He didn’t trust Dom. Which was probably smart. He wouldn’t trust him either. A man being manipulated into cooperating wasn’t the best of allies, because the second you lost that leverage you had an enemy right at your throat.

He stared at the other man, wondering what exactly he was going to do. But before either of them had a chance to say anything, Cipher appeared at his shoulder. 

“Dom,” she said. “Good job getting the chip.” She nodded at the red-headed man, who frowned, but moved away. “Come with me.”

Silently Dom followed her back out of the room into what looked like some sort of living space. It was nice, so it must have been her’s. His eyes passed over rows of ridiculous looking shoes without much interest. In front of him a clear table sat full of various sidearms. More guns than you might ever see in the hands of any law-abiding civilian. Not that he had any illusions about Cipher.

“Before we go any further,” he said, looking over at her. “I want to see Tamar.”

She smiled, tilting her head. “What? That little photo of your nephew wasn’t enough of an incentive for you?”

“I got your damn chip,” he replied. “Now I’d like to see Tamar.”

She stood, letting out a little sigh. “Fine. If only so you can understand what’s at stake here, Dom. Why I need your cooperation.”

She led him through the other side of the living area past a pair of armed guards. They watched him silently. One of the men slid a card through a reader and the door slid open, revealing a dim room beyond. Cipher stepped forward, flicking on the light. Dom blinked, his eyes adjusting as a figure came into view. Between them there was a stretch of what looked like glass, separating one side of the room from the other. Knowing Cipher, it was bulletproof and reinforced.

A single cot sat in the middle of the space, to one side a table with what looked like the remains of a meal set atop it. Little else. The woman sat in the middle of the cot, a faded black t-shirt stretched over her incredibly pregnant belly. Her long blonde hair was a tangle over one shoulder and she lifted her head, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light. Dom bit back the urge to demand why Cipher left the woman sitting in the dark. It wouldn’t help either of them.

“I know you,” Tamar said, her gaze falling on him. “Fernando’s cousin, right? Dominic?” Her voice was accented, but he couldn’t place it. “I’m surprised you actually came.”

“He asked for my help. Was I gonna leave you here?”

She shrugged, rubbing a hand over her stomach. “You don’t know me. Certainly don’t owe me anything.”

“You’re family.” He replied.

She smiled a little, sadly. “Fernando was always going on about family too. But it seems to me like it only gets you into trouble in the end. If it weren’t for family I wouldn’t be here.”

Dom’s gaze slid to Cipher, questioning and the woman offered him a slow smile. “Interested now, are we?” she asked him. “You know, she’s right. I took her because I wanted to get to you. It was never about money, Dom.”

He glared, folding his arms across his chest. “Why? I don’t see why you need me for any of this stuff you’ve got planned. Why do all this to get me here?”

“I have my reasons,” she answered, turning her back to the cell. “The least of which is the fact that if I didn’t recruit you, then you’d likely be messing with my plans alongside your team. I can’t have that.” She smiled. “It’s time to go. You’ve seen what you needed to see.”

It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but Dom felt that if he pushed for more now he’d only succeed in pissing the woman off. He just had to hope that the foundation he’d laid would be there when he made his next move, because there was no way he could do this on his own.

\--------------------------------------------------

Hobbs had been in prisons before, oh many a time. He’d even been in this particular prison. But not like this. Not in an orange jumpsuit and cuffs. Not as an inmate being escorted to lock-up. It sure didn’t feel good.

As the guards escorted him through the place, hoots and hollers hit his ears. Taunts, threats. Oh, there were plenty of criminals he’d locked away in this joint. None of them scared him, and Hobbs ignored it, following his escort. They came to his cell, a little cement and plexiglass affair with an incredibly uncomfortable looking bed inside.

The guard swiped his keycard and the door slid open. They removed the cuffs and chains and Hobbs strode through. Sure, he probably could fight his way out of this place, but all that would get him was another mark on his previously clean record. Which would make getting his job back next to impossible.

The door slid shut again and the guards departed, leaving Hobbs standing on the other side of the plexiglass before a faint chuckle interrupted his thoughts. He looked up, spotting a familiar figure in the cell across from his. The man had a shit-eating grin on his face that made Hobbs’ stomach turn. He scowled.

“Well, well, well,” Deckard Shaw’s voice was taunting. “Look who it is. Never expected to see you on this side, eh?” He raised his brows. “Good cop gone bad. What a cliche.”

Hobbs said nothing. He had no interest in bantering with the Brit who’d given him such trouble earlier in the year. Left him with some pain in his elbow after that fractured arm, too.

“I won’t be visiting long,” he finally said, feigning disinterest.

“Uh huh,” Shaw laughed. “And how exactly you planning on getting out? I’ve heard there’s about… 10 tons of steel and concrete. Not gonna dig, are ya?”

“Hello, Mr. Shaw,” another familiar voice interrupted them before Hobbs could reply and he looked over to see Mr. Nobody strolling towards their cells, dressed in a tidy black suit. He was alone, but Hobbs could see another man in a suit and a cadre of men in body armor with guns at the foot of the stairs. 

“Agent Hobbs,” Nobody turned his attention to him and gave a smile. “I’ve come, with an offer.”

Hobbs crossed his arms over his chest. “And just what offer is that?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Shaw put in from across the way. “I’d like to make a counter-offer, old man.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Letty?”

Ramsey’s voice pulled her out of her reverie, where she sat in Mr. Nobody’s base. The man had sent one of his underlings to retrieve them from the garage, something about a job and helping them out. She could only imagine that he knew about Dom. The man seemed to know a lot. Maybe he could tell them what was going on.

They were waiting now for him to arrive, Tej checking out the new computer system with one of the techies while Roman pestered everyone he could about snacks. 

Letty had been going over the last few days in her head, trying to pinpoint anything off about Dom’s behavior, trying to figure out when he’d made all those phone calls. It was doing little more than making her crazy and she was longing for something, anything to do. Some sort of action to take.

Still, she was half afraid that Ramsey was going to ask if she was okay, or try to talk about it and Letty didn’t want to. Usually when things got to her, she talked to Dom. He was always her rock, and the only one she let in close. Failing that she could usually talk to Mia, but right now neither was an option, which meant Letty was keeping her own counsel.

Luckily, Ramsey didn’t say anything, just crossed towards her slowly.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” the other woman said after a moment.

“What about?”

“I think I should learn… how to fight,” Ramsey tucked her hands into her pockets, shifting on her feet. “Would you teach me?”

Letty goggled at her for a moment, speechless. “You want me to what?”

“Teach me how to fight. How to defend myself. I can’t keep depending on everyone else. You guys won’t always be around.” She shifted on her feet. “I need to be able to protect myself.”

“Okay…” Letty agreed. “But why me? Can’t Tej teach you?”

“No I need it to be you. It’s different when women fight we… can’t rely on being stronger or bigger. I’m not going to be able to pull out some martial arts or something. I need to know how to fight… dirty.”

Letty chuckled briefly, amusement in her dark eyes as she flicked them over the other woman. “Well… I guess I can do that.” She turned to look across the space. There was a long conference style table and countless computers and monitoring equipment. Nowhere for them to practice. 

“Come on,” she said, tilting her head. Ramsey followed and the two women moved through one of the doors into the large garage where they’d left their cars earlier. There was still a large open space in the center of the area that would suffice, even though it wasn’t really ideal. They could have done with a training or workout room where the floor would have mats to break their fall.

“Okay,” Letty said, studying the other woman for a moment. “First rule about fighting dirty is that you need to go for the most vulnerable parts, the soft bits. Eyes, nose. Use your fingernails, car or house keys will work. Anything handy.”

Ramsey nodded. “Okay. Gross but… eyes makes sense. What about a kick between the legs. That works right?”

Letty laughed. “Sometimes. Depends how much adrenaline they’ve got going through them. Or on your shoes.” 

“Left my steel toes at home.”

Smirking, Letty folded her arms over her chest. “If you have a knife or something like that, aim for the inside of the thigh. Femoral artery. Deep enough cut and they’ll be down. For good.”

“You mean it will kill someone,” Ramsey replied, shifting warily.

“If your aim is good, yeah.” Letty nodded. “Let’s start with some basics though. A lot of times your opponent is going to be bigger than you. You can use that against them. Momentum is your friend.” 

She cast her eyes around the area. It would be a lot better to have someone to demonstrate on.

“Hey you,” she spotted an armed guard standing across the garage near one of the doors. He stood up a little straighter, then motioned to himself questioningly. “Yeah. Come over here.”

The man strode towards them, face schooled and professional. “Can I help you ladies?”

“I’m trying to show her how to take down a bigger opponent. Would you mind helping me demonstrate?”

He gave her a once-over, and Letty knew that look. It was the look that meant she was being underestimated as usual. She fought not to roll her eyes, just stared stonily at him until he agreed, shrugging off his weapon.

“Should I lose the body armor?” he asked.

“No, it will probably make it hurt less when you hit the floor,” Letty told him.

“Hey, I’ll have you know I have extensive hand-to-hand combat tra-” but anything else he would have said was cut off as Letty grabbed him by the front of his armor, turning her shoulder into his chest and flipping him over to land on his back on the floor.

Winded, he blinked up at her in shock as Ramsey clapped, looking amused.

“It would have been even more effective if he was coming at you,” Letty told the other woman. “He would have been moving fast and flipped harder.”

“Ouch,” the guy on the floor said. “I’m glad I wasn’t.”

“Oh come on, where’s that training?” Letty teased. “Get up so she can try.”

\------------------------------------------------------

“So,” Mr. Nobody broke the tense silence that had fallen over the group. “This is nice, isn’t it? A little group gathering?”

“Nice isn’t the term I’d use, exactly,” Tej muttered. He was watching Deckard Shaw with something akin to distrust from across the room. The man had taken up residence in one corner shortly after Nobody had arrived with both him and Hobbs.

“I still don’t understand why he’s here,” Letty added, narrowing her eyes. “He killed Han. He tried to kill us. Why isn’t he in prison?”

Shaw scoffed, turning his gaze on her. “That’s rich coming from you, isn’t it? Shouldn’t everyone in this room be locked up?”

Letty clenched her jaw, biting back a retort. As far as she’d known the only people she’d put under were criminals themselves, but when she’d been running with Owen there’d been a lot of collateral damage with that tank. Could she really say she had no part of that?

“Mr. Shaw is here to help us out with a mutual problem,” Nobody explained, coming to stand in the center of the room. He hit a button on a remote, and the image of a woman appeared on the screen, blonde, tall, pretty. Everyone was silent, waiting for him to explain what this had to do with them. “Her name is Cipher, and she is a legendarily skilled cyber criminal.”

“That’s impossible,” Ramsey put in. “Cipher is a group… not a single person.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, I’m afraid,” Mr. Nobody told her. “She’s the one who runs the show. This woman is Cipher.”

“And she’s the one who hired my baby brother to do her dirty work,” Shaw said with a low growl.

Letty sat up a little, surprised. “Really?” Her head tilted slightly. “So… we must be on her radar.”

“Not just that,” Nobody said. “But the new man on her team? None other than Dominic Toretto.”

Everyone fell silent, digesting the information. Somehow, this woman was behind all of this. But why? And why would Dom help her?

“So we’re here to stop him, I’m guessing,” Hobbs supplied, speaking up from where he sat at the head of the long conference table, expression hard, shoulders tense.

“How exactly are we going to do that?” Roman asked. “This is bullshit man. We operate as a team and part of that team is gone. We don’t turn against each other.”

“Dom is the one who turned against us,” Hobbs said. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”

“But there must be a reason for it,” Letty said. “I need to… talk to him. Something has to be going on.”

Mr. Nobody held up his hands. “You’re all right. But before any of that can happen we need to find him, and we need to catch him. We bring Dom in and we figure out what’s going on. You’re the people who can do it.”

“That’s going to be a lot easier said than done, man,” Tej muttered.

“We could use the God’s Eye,” Roman suggested. “You know, to find him. We busted our asses to get that shit. Why not use it?”

“One… small problem,” Mr. Nobody admitted. “Cipher and her people hit us hard last week at our old base. They took the God’s Eye.”

“What??” Roman’s sound of disbelief was almost shrill. “You mean to say we risked our lives for that shit and you just fucking lost it? Just like that? What the fuck kind of secret service are y’all anyways?”

“Anyway…” Mr. Nobody said, after a long moment of silence. “We need another way.”

“Not to mention the fact that we need to stay off the grid,” Ramsey put in. “They’ll be able to watch us with that?”

“She’s probably already been watching us,” Letty agreed. “So what leads can we use?”

“I think I might be able to be of help there,” Shaw put in. “If you wouldn’t mind letting me get hands on some of this tech you’ve got lying about.”

Mr. Nobody nodded, motioning to the computer in front of them. When Deckard went to it Ramsey stood, hovering over his shoulder with curiosity and suspicion, and perhaps the others were a bit thankful that she was keeping a watchful eye.

“Before I got ahold of the God’s Eye I had to make use of more creative methods. In this case I don’t think we’ll be about to draw Toretto out. He probably has to operate on Cipher’s say-so.”

“Further evidence that something is going on,” Tej said. “Taking orders isn’t Dom. Even when he worked for Hobbs, for Nobody, it was always on his own terms.”

“Yeah well Cipher must have something on him. Not that she can’t be plenty persuasive on her own. She managed to sweet talk my little brother into doing her dirty work. That business in Mexico, London, Spain? It all ties back up to her.”

“So why not go after her from the beginning?” Letty asked him. “Why come after us?”

“I planned to do both,” he replied, flicking his gaze towards her, fingers still moving over the screen in front of him. “And to be fair, I wasn’t exactly sure Owen would recover when I first went after your friend.”

“That’s not exactly an apology,” Letty replied, narrowing her eyes. “You killed him.”

“Would it matter if I apologized?” he asked. “We’ve all done things we ain’t proud of, sweetheart.”

He fell silent, tapping a few more commands into the tablet. “Well. Looks like our biggest clue is that chip Dom liberated from you in Berlin. Turns out it’s one of a set. Useless without the other two.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Nobody said. “Pieces of a military grade weapon NATO recovered from a terrorist operation in Russia some years back. They decided to send the chips to different countries for safe-keeping.”

“Why not just destroy them?” Roman asked. “I mean, why do they have to keep the dangerous weapon around for some crazy hacker bitch to steal? Seems pretty stupid.”

Mr. Nobody let out a small laugh. “Sadly, son, that’s not how the world works. You keep a hand on the big gun just in case you need to use it.”

“So where are the other chips, then?” Ramsey asked.

“Well it’s pretty common knowledge among people with the right clearance that another of the chips is in New York,” Mr. Nobody said. “That information wouldn’t be so hard for Cipher to discover.”

“And the last one?” Tej asked.

Mr. Nobody shrugged. “I’ll see what I can find out. But security is going to be tight after this. My suggestion is you head to New York. That’s your likely target.”

\------------------------------------------------------

They were going to head to NY, so the team had taken the time to get ready, heading back to their separate places to get some supplies and pack up some things. They had to travel off the grid, but if Cipher really was watching them she wouldn’t find it that strange to find them at home, so they weren’t too careful about their movements.

Letty had even swung by the post office to pick up the held mail before driving round to check on the house.

It looked pretty different now. After the explosion the whole place had needed to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up. The bonus being that it now boasted central air conditioning, and the previously overgrown yard had been replaced by more California-friendly plants. Even the mailbox was new, 1327 etched on one side of the black paint.

Letty went up the concrete steps, fishing the keys from her pocket to unlock the door. It still smelled faintly of wood varnish and paint, even though she knew construction had been completed a couple months back. They’d been in Cuba, so Mia had come by to supervise the moving of furniture. It was stuff they’d picked out ages ago it seemed, another lifetime ago. A few pieces salvaged from the house they’d all practically grown up in. 

She stepped inside, trying not to think about the fact that Dom should be here with her. They’d only had a day here together before the job in Berlin. Their luggage from Cuba was still sitting just inside the door. A bag of stuff for Mia, Brian and the kids. She dragged a hand through her hair, moving further in to let the door swing shut. It would have to wait. 

A quick trip up to the bedroom for some clothes and toiletries and Letty was out the door again, locking up before she slid into the driver’s side of her car and made her way to the garage.

It wasn’t far. A place Dom had bought not long after they’d come back from London. Before she could even remember anything they’d worked there together. Fixed it up.

They kept most of their cars there, not enough room in the drive at home. Spent time tuning or modifying when they could. Always working on something. Another project always on deck. Like they couldn’t handle not having some engine to tinker with. The Challenger she’d driven in Berlin wasn’t back yet. Even with Mr. Nobody’s help there was the wait for it to travel across the ocean and almost always some hold up in US Customs. But that didn’t matter. They wouldn’t be bringing any cars to New York. Traveling under the radar was going to make that too difficult.

She pulled into the garage, turning off the car. Left her bag in the passenger seat as she climbed out, flicked on the lights to cast the room in a warm glow. The sun was setting outside and the others would be here soon to meet up. 

Her dark eyes swept over the long red body of the Chevelle sitting off to one side. She could remember putting in some time on the bodywork last summer. She slid her hand along the side slowly, then pulled open the door and dropped into the passenger side. She opened the glove compartment and the photos were in her hands before she thought better of it. She stared down at them, brows drawn together. There were still no real answers. This woman Cipher. Why was Dom working for her? Why wouldn’t he have told her?

She flipped over the top photo and her eyes snagged on something. Writing, and she noticed the slanted letters of Dom’s hand right away. At first glance it looked like a date. But when she stared at it she found herself frowning in confusion. That wasn’t the date they’d taken the picture. May 21st. It was only a couple days from now. There was also a time noted next to it. 12:30.

She puzzled over it a moment before turning over the other photo. This one had what looked like a list written on it and Letty turned the photo sideways to look at it. She recognized the jumble of letters as the shorthand they’d used at the garage. Easier to keep records when they could note down parts and repairs without having to write the whole word. 

It didn’t make sense though and she ran her thumb over the letters. Some sort of code? Maybe Dom knew he had been watched. The letters N-Y snagged her attention and she sifted through the rest for something. S-O-H-O. An address lost in the jumble of shorthand. A date, time and address.

It had to mean something.

Turning the photos back over, Letty closed the glovebox and crossed to her car, fishing the bag out as the rumble of an engine announced the arrival of Tej and Ramsey. She offered them a tight smile, clutched the photos against her chest and slid into the back seat. 

“Where’s Roman?” she asked. 

Tej shrugged. “He said he was on his way.”

It wasn’t too long until they heard the bass beats of music filtering out of a car stereo and Roman pulled up into the shop. He shut off the car, cutting the music, and grabbed a duffel, coming to join Letty in the back of Tej’s vehicle.

“Where are we going anyway?” He asked as Tej pulled out into the road. “How can we go anywhere if that Cipher bitch has the God’s Eye? Hmm?”

Ramsey turned to glare at him. “Roman.”

“What?” He blinked at her. 

“Stop talking. It can hear you too.”

Admonished, Roman fell silent and they drove for a while, down roads that flickered between puddles of streetlights as the sun disappeared even further over the Los Angeles skyline. They hadn’t been on the road for more than ten minutes when Letty felt eyes on her.

She glanced over at Roman who was looking at the photos she had in her lap. Her shoulders tensed up, waiting for him to make some dumb comment like he always did, but he just cleared his throat.

“Yo, Let,” he said softly. “For what it’s worth. I’m sorry.”

She turned her head away. “Nothing to apologize for, Rome.”

He fell silent again as they drove further outside LA, out into the open road where the desert stretched on either side. 

“Where the hell we going?” he demanded.

“Out here there’s no cameras,” Tej said. “We’re meeting up with Mr. Nobody. Off the grid, remember?”

\------------------------------------------------------

It turned out that traveling off the grid was not as glamorous as one would imagine. In the desert they’d met up with a cargo truck that they drove the car onto. Secured in the back they’d rode that way for what felt like hours, until they’d all fallen asleep. 

The following morning they’d woken in a hangar in Texas and from there flown on plane delivering people’s furniture and boxes for a cross country move. Roman had stretched out on an old couch wrapped in plastic while Letty settled on the floor with Tej and Ramsey, showing them the message she had found on the photos.

“It’s a time and date,” she showed them. “Tomorrow. In Soho. There’s an address too.”

“What if it’s a trap?” Ramsey asked.

“No,” Letty said. “It’s Dom’s handwriting. He wouldn’t lead me into a trap.”

“And you’re planning to go?” Tej asked her.

“It might be the only way we get any answers. I’m going to need your help. I need to get there off the grid.”

“I’m sure we can work something out when we get to New York,” Tej agreed. “Mr. Nobody is hooking us up with special cell phones and everything. We’ll get you there, girl.”

\------------------------------------------------------

The location had turned out to be an old dive bar. The kind of place where you go down a narrowed set of steps and find yourself in another world. Down here a long, scarred bartop dominated the room, a dark cherry wood. It was flanked by stools, mismatched, in an eclectic sort of way. The floor, sticky under your feet from too many spilt drinks and too much lazy cleaning. There was a mirror behind the bar, smokey around the edges from age. She could picture it ten, twenty years ago, with a haze of cigarette smoke in the air, old men gathered around with cigars and scotch on the rocks.

She’d come in the back way, with the deliveries, and a careful scout of the place had revealed absolutely no cameras about. It was too early in the day to really be busy, and a hand-printed sign by the front door said cell-phones were to be turned off on the premises. The few customers there seemed to be on the older side, so she doubted it was much of a problem anyway. She ordered a beer and settled down at a table with a good view of the door to wait.

\------------------------------------------------------

Dom was scouting out the area for tomorrow’s job, and Cipher was watching. Always watching.

She had intel that the chip was due to be moved tomorrow morning, and it would be easiest to grab it on the road, rather than breaking into some secure facility. Especially when he didn’t have his team to rely on. 

His hand tightened on the gear shift. His team. He hoped Letty had gotten his message.

Cipher’s voice filtered through his car. “Haven’t seen any sign of your people since a couple days ago in LA,” she said. “But we should expect them to pop up.”

“You think they’re going to come after me?” he asked, crossing the Williamsburg Bridge from Brooklyn. He’d spent the night holed up at a little garage with an apartment above so he could put some wrench time in on the Charger. Cipher kept a close eye, and he was glad he’d been able to do the majority of the work on her before she’d been so close. 

“Don’t you think so?” she asked, amusement in her voice. “I can’t see them giving up so easily.”

“Probably not,” he agreed, but there was an unhappiness in his voice. She wanted him to hurt his family. To make them think he’d really turned on them. Somehow he had to sell it. At least until his plan could be set into motion.

He turned down an alleyway as his engine started to sputter. “I gotta take a look under the hood,” he muttered, pulling to a stop.

“I thought you just checked it this morning?” she demanded, frowning. 

“It’s an older car. I didn’t get time to work all the kinks out, cause someone was in a rush,” he said pointedly, opening the door. “I just need a few minutes.”

She fairly growled. “You have five, and I’ve got eyes on you.”

However, when Dom lifted the hood of Charger, her view from the dashcam of the car was blocked. Eyes narrowed, Cipher called up the God’s Eye to get herself another angle. There was no camera at the other end of the alley, but a side-street offered one through a police camera set up on the side of a building. 

That was, until a UPS truck pulled into the side street and double-parked, blinkers on. Cipher cursed. “I need another view,” she said and a couple of techs brought up the programs as well, searching.

“There’s nothing,” one man told her. “That alley is a dead zone.”

“He must have known,” Cipher breathed. “Try and bounce it off of something, a reflective surface. I need to get eyes on him, now.”

Dom knew he didn’t have a lot of time. He was down the alley and ducking in the back entrance to the bar before he had time to worry that his plan wouldn’t work. He’d done what he could. Taking a chance was the only way that he could save his family.

He spotted Letty before she saw him, but she turned when she felt him staring. He felt pinned to the spot, like all the air had rushed out of his chest. The relief of seeing her again. Of knowing she’d found his message. That she’d trusted in him enough to come. 

They didn’t have time to stare but that was okay because suddenly she was across the room and in his arms. He whispered her name, ducked his head and pressed a kiss atop the crown of her hair. 

After a moment, he forced himself to pull back. “I don’t have much time,” he said, leading her back to the table she’d been sitting at.

She nodded, waiting for him to speak, curling one hand around her beer bottle for lack of anything else to do with her hands.

Dom didn’t want to let go. As he eased himself on the stool across from her he stroked his fingers over the inside of her wrist, felt her pulse jump beneath his touch. Shifting closer he lowered his voice. “Cipher has my cousin’s girlfriend,” he said. “And she’s nine-months pregnant with his kid.”

“Jesus,” Letty muttered, reaching out to take the small device Dom passed her under the table. It was hard and square, smooth like a cellphone, but smaller.

“She watches me. She’s got eyes everywhere. I have to go back. To play along. But someone has to get Tamar out. Use that to find her. I know who you can send. That’s planned out… but I need you to do something.”

Letty felt the small rolled up piece of paper tucked in one side of the device Dom had passed her. Her brows furrowed. “What is it?”

“Cipher has access to military drones. She has eyes on Mia. Tell Mr. Nobody. He needs to find a way around it. I can’t do anything from where I am. But I can’t make a move if Mia and Brian are in danger.”

He lifted his hand, cupping her cheek as he stood. He knew his time was up. “She can’t know about this. That you know anything.”

Swallowing hard, Letty nodded. She was going to let him go, but then she stood, threw her arms around him and held on tight. He cupped her arms, stroking the soft skin gently before easing her away just enough. Leaned down to catch her up in a slow kiss. It was intense, almost desperate. Like they were both afraid they’d never see each other again. But it was all too brief, and then Dom was drawing back with a soft murmur and out the door before Letty could say anything in response. Her shoulders sagged and she looked down at the small device in her hand. 

“If that delivery truck doesn’t move in the next five seconds then get me Rhodes,” Cipher said. “He’s on the ground.”

“Roger,” her man agreed, still typing furiously, trying to grab some other view of the alley. “Oh look, the truck’s moving.”

Cipher’s eyes narrowed, suspicion painted into the tense line of her spine as the UPS truck slowly pulled back down the side street. Just at the same time as Dom closed the hood of the Charger.  He held up a burnt-out spark plug and fixed the latches. 

He slid back into the car.

Cipher’s jaw worked a moment, and she took in a slow breath. “That better not happen again,” she warned.

“Better for the car to break down in the middle of a job?” he asked, arching his brows in the direction of the camera he knew was watching him.

She glared. “Just get back on the streets scouting those locations. I want you back at home base before rush hour.”

“This is New York City,” he told her, easing into downtown traffic. “It’s gonna be slow going.”


	4. Chapter 4

_New York City_

She spotted Deckard working along in the garage when she came in, but Letty didn’t approach him. Instead crossing to the red Corvette she’d selected, Letty opened the door to pop the hood. She tossed the tracker and note Dom had given her earlier into the front seat and moved around the vehicle towards one of the workbenches situated around the large space.

Her hand had just closed around a small socket wrench when she heard footsteps drawing closer. Letty lifted her head, glancing over her shoulder as Deckard approached, wiping greasy hands on a dirty rag. 

She raised a brow, but turned back to the tools, picking out a pair of angled pliers before she rounded the Corvette, saying nothing. She leaned over the engine, tucking the wrench into her back pocket as she ran her fingers over some wiring, looking for the damaged one she’d spotted earlier. She was just stripping off enough of the plastic coating to get a better look when Shaw eased against the opposite side of the car, glancing down at her.

“Heard you had a little meeting,” he said.

Letty made a noncommittal noise as she worked, waiting for him to get to the point.

“Find out anything useful?” he asked.

She straightened up, letting out a sigh. “Maybe. It depends.”

“On what, exactly?”

“A few things. Like whether I can trust you enough to tell you anything.” She crossed her arms in front of her. “You’re responsible for the death of a friend of mine.”

“Right,” he agreed. “The guy in Tokyo.” He rubbed a hand over his head, looked at her seriously. “Kind of familiar though, ain’t it? A man taking matters into his own hands? Getting revenge for the people he loves, for his family?”

Letty stared at him evenly, resting her hands against the side of her car. She knew exactly what he was saying, and just who he was talking about.

“Those guys were criminals,” she said.

“And so are you. Your whole family. All of us are criminals now, aren’t we?” he asked. “I could say I’m sorry about Han and maybe you’d believe me, but is that what’s going to make you trust me?”

“No,” she admitted, moving around the front of the car. She stopped in front of him, as if she was considering for a moment, before moving past him to the driver’s side door. She pulled it open, then leaned in to take out two folded sheets of paper and a small black device. She flipped through the papers and passed him one.

“It’s instructions,” she said. “For a job.” She chewed on her lower lip for a moment as he looked over it. “Someone has to fall off the grid, completely. We can be careful but… she’ll still be looking for us. She won’t be looking for a dead man.”

“And I’m the only logical choice,” he said, looking at her. “But why? I could just take my new found freedom and split.”

She chuckled softly. “Well.. two things. One, I know you won’t be dead. If you don’t hold up your end, don’t think I won’t come after you with everything I’ve got.” She gave him a hard look that had him reevaluating his assessment of her. The woman had to be plenty dangerous in her own right. “And two,” she went on. “You want revenge on Cipher. For what she got your brother involved in.”

“He’s not exactly an innocent angel. I know that,” he said. “But he’s still my baby brother.”

Letty took a slow breath, her face impassive. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to move past what he did to me,” she admitted. “So if you involve him, I really don’t want to know about it. But I’ll leave it to you to pick someone to help you out with the job.” She passed him the small device. “You’ll need this.”

“The notes say this is a plane though,” he told her, brow furrowed. “So what if it’s up in the air?”

“I’m sure you’re plenty resourceful enough to figure that out.”

\------------------------------------------------------------

The cars were ready, and the police scanner was running. They knew Dom was making his move today, somewhere downtown, but not when and exactly where.

The warehouse was located in Chinatown not far of a drive from the docks. Traffic could definitely make it more difficult, but odds were that whatever Cipher had up her sleeve was going to clear the streets in a bad way.

Letty was sitting on the creeper next to her car, idly spinning the grappling hook that she was getting ready to install. “Do you think that this is a good idea? I mean, we need to let Dom get the chip.”

“We have to make it convincing,” Hobbs said from across the garage. She and Tej had already installed his on the monster jeep he’d selected, but he was setting up the GPS, studying the layout of the city from above. “We let Dom walk with it and Cipher knows something is up.”

“He’s right,” Roman agreed, making a last check of his engine. “We can’t let Dom down. Mr. Nobody’s working on those drones but right now Mia and Brian are in real danger.”

“Not to mention the woman Cipher got locked up,” Tej put in. “The pregnant woman. That’s some cold shit, man.”

“Would you find it less cold if she wasn’t pregnant?” Hobbs asked.

“I dunno,” Tej said. “Maybe, yeah. Just some part of me that says all pregnant women gotta be protected, man.”

Letty snorted. “You and every other man on the planet.”

“It’s biological, woman,” Roman said. “Probably ever since we were cavemen trying to kill us some deer or something.”

“If you were off trying to kill a deer wouldn’t the women have to protect themselves?” Letty asked, and Ramsey laughed.

“Well, I…” Roman frowned. “That is…”

They were interrupted by the sound of the police scanner going off. “Uh…” came the panicked sounding voice of a woman who was probably operating the switchboard for that shift. “We have multiple calls of uncontrolled vehicles downtown. I need all available response immediately. Church Street to Nassau between Wall and Fulton. I repeat, I need all available response.”

“That sounds like it could be Dom,” Hobbs said, picking up his communicator and fitting it into one ear. “Let’s get moving, people.”

\------------------------------------------------------------

The kind of hacking Cipher and her people were doing was pretty much beyond anything Dom had seen before. It was true, that a lot of the newer vehicles had certain auto-drive abilities. Some to help them park, others to prevent collisions. If you could get control of those computers, who was to say you couldn’t pilot a car from afar.

But somehow Cipher had gotten control of hundreds of them. Dom wasn’t sure of the complexities of it, how they managed to coordinate them, to steer them all at once, but idling down one of the many side-streets in Manhattan he watched dozens of them careen past. Most of them were empty, but there was one here and there with people still trapped inside. His stomach clenched, and he gripped his steering wheel. There was nothing he could do.

The chip was being escorted from a private security firm down in the financial district up to midtown where it would be loaded on a secure train. If they got it underground it would be pretty much near impossible for him to grab. Cipher’s cars couldn’t fit down a subway entrance anymore than his could, and there’d be no way to eliminate the security he’d run into there. So it was on the streets, or not at all.

Cipher directed the fleet of cars to take out the police escort first, sailing down a side street to barrel into the ones at the rear of the convoy. They were taken out immediately, sent flying into nearby sidewalks, flipping over parked vehicles as pedestrians screamed and scattered. 

More cars came from the opposite direction, colliding head-on with the front of the motorcade and the armored vehicle was forced to swerve to avoid them, recentering itself as they called in for backup. 

“Follow them,” Cipher’s voice filtered into his ear as he watched the truck speed past. It was still flanked by motorcycle escorts, but that wouldn’t be much of an issue.

He pulled out into the street behind them, where traffic had been cleared away thanks to the copious wrecks left behind. Shifting gear he sped after them, giving enough space for what he was sure Cipher was about to do next.

“Okay,” she said, laugh in her voice. “We’re going to make it rain.”

As the remains of the convoy drove past a parking garage all the sudden it happened. Cars were falling from above, crashing nose-first into the ground. At first the armored truck tried to swerve and avoid them, but there were too many. Dom thought he saw one of the motorcyclists slide free, avoiding getting crushed. But soon there was a mountain of cars in front of him. On all sides of the armored vehicle. Pinning it in place. Dom pulled closer as things settled down, then slid his car into park.

“Tell me again why it was necessary for me to do this, when you can drop a dozen cars on something?”

Cipher chuckled in his ear. “It’s not necessary. But you’re still going to do it.”

Frowning, Dom opened the door and stepped out, strapping on the bulletproof body armor he had in his backseat along with a shield to block anything of a higher caliber. Snapping a mask over his head he reluctantly approached the armored vehicle. 

There wasn’t any movement amongst the pile of cars, but that didn’t mean anything. The truck would have two guards up front, and they would have the keys to the safe where the chip was kept. Sure he had tools in his car he could use to cut into the armored car. But that would take the kind of time he didn’t have. He moved towards the driver’s side.  

A gun poked out of the window and Dom ducked behind the shield as it fired, bullets pinging against the metal. He inched closer slowly, waiting for the tell-tale click that old him it was out of ammunition. He had a pistol tucked into a holster at his waist,but he didn’t reach for it. He wasn’t about to shoot people who were just doing their jobs. Bad enough for those crushed beneath Cipher’s hail of cars.

“Don’t come any closer!” One of the guard warned, and Dom poked his head out to see that he was aiming another gun, though this one was a much smaller handgun. He wasn’t going to fire wildly and waste what bullets he had left.

He turned his head, but didn’t hear the sound of the door opening or anything that might indicate what the second guard was up to. “Toss out the keys,” Dom said. “And you can go.”

“Fuck off,” the guard replied. “You know we won’t do that.”

“And you think this ends if you put a bullet in me here?” he asked. “Look around you.”

The guard hesitated and then Dom could hear the two men talking in hushed voices for a minute. He hoped that they would just agree and hand over the keys, but it seemed unlikely. 

“You’ll have to come and take it!” The guard shouted back.

Yeah, called it.

Dom hunched low behind the shield and sped up, rushing for the driver’s side door. The guard cried out , ducking back inside. But not before he squeezed off two panicked rounds that shattered the window. 

Dom tossed a gas grenade in through the opening, holding his shield against the window and ducking his head. He could hear them coughing and scrambling to escape out the other side, and waited until he heard the sound of the door opening, the two men stumbling out of the car, still hacking. He darted around the front. One of them was still clutching the pistol, gasping for breath and Dom kicked it from his hand, pressing one booted foot against the man’s chest. 

“Keys,” he demanded. 

Shaking, the other guard fished them from the hook of his belt and handed them over.

“Now get out of here,” Dom ordered. 

Stumbling to their feet, the guards clambered over the pile of twisted metal and broken cars, shouting for help.

He didn’t have long, so Dom unlocked the back of the truck, tossing the shield aside. Inside there was a safe, which he unlocked as well. And inside of that was a small metal case. He grabbed it, and taking that and the keys, strode back to his waiting vehicle.

He hastily tossed the case inside and stripped off the body armor, chucking it into the backseat. Then he climbed in, shifted the car into drive and turned down an alleyway towards his planned escape route.

Only to be stopped in his tracks. He rubbed a hand over his brow and let out a sigh.

“What is it?” Cipher demanded.

“I just found my team,” he replied, staring at row of six cars in front of him. His eyes went first to Letty, staring at him from the red Corvette. Roman, Tej, with Ramsey in the passenger seat, Hobbs in the big Jeep as expected, and Deckard Shaw giving him an infuriating little smirk.

Sure, he could turn around and go back the way he came, but odds were that emergency responses were heading that way, not to mention the mess Cipher had made the road. He’d be lucky if there was a path. But it was a better bet than trying to play chicken with his team. They sure as hell wouldn’t be moving and a head on collision wouldn’t help him.

Yanking the wheel he spun around the way he’d come and kicked into a higher gear, bursting out onto the main road. He could hear the roar of engines behind him and knew they were following. 

Veering around smoking wrecks and abandoned vehicles, Dom took the next left, the team hot on his heels.

\------------------------------------------------------------

“You know he’s going to try to lose us,” Hobbs said, weaving around an ambulance that was barreling towards them.

“Maybe he’ll get stuck in traffic,” Roman commented. “This is New York, after all.”

Letty glanced over at Tej who was nearly alongside her. “I’m going to try and catch up with him,” she said. “You guys take the side road and see if we can flank him.”

“Everyone know’s what they’re supposed to do, right?” Tej asked.

“Why do I feel like that’s directed at me?” Roman asked.

“Roman, it’s always directed at you,” Hobbs offered.

As Letty closed the gap between Dom’s car and her own, the others peeled off, taking side streets to the right and left. Ahead she could see that traffic was looking a bit more normal, though it seemed like police were blocking off the area for the most part. Dom weaved around a slow SUV and she followed, the gap between their cars shortening.

When Dom turned his head to meet her gaze his face was hard, a stony mask, and even though she knew it was an act, she knew why this was happening, Letty couldn’t help the anxiety that balled in her stomach. Then Dom hit the button for the nitrous and pulled ahead of her again. 

“Oh no you don’t,” she muttered, hitting the button she’d installed earlier that day. The grappling hook went flying, embedding itself into the back of Dom’s car. She spared a moment of interna dismay for doing that to the Charger, but this was the plan. 

She slammed on the brakes, even though a part of her knew it would probably be useless. Dom probably had more horsepower in that beast than two of their cars put together. And true enough she was struggling to keep the Corvette from being swung into parked cars as he dragged her along behind. 

“I could use a hand here,” she said.

“Cavalry is right on time came Tej’s response as he pulled onto the road alongside her, firing off his own grappling hook. 

But soon Dom was dragging both of them along behind. Now they were avoiding hitting one another along with anything else on the street. 

“Watch the brakes,” Letty told him. “We don't want the line to snap.”

Ahead of them Dom slowed to a stop as he came to a four way intersection. Ahead of him, Roman idled, Hobbs and Shaw on the crossroads. As if at once they fired their own hooks, catching the side at either door and embedding in through the front grill to the body beneath. 

There wasn't anywhere for Dom to go.

The cars strained against one another as they kept the lines taught, the beast of a Charger in the center, wheels burning rubber as he tried to break free. He met Roman’s gaze, then shifted up a gear, pressing hard on the breaks. He could see Roman screaming something as they drew closer, the Charger crunching into the front fender of the Bentley he was driving. Roman glared, then shifted into reverse, backing away. At the same time, Dom shifted into reverse, and before Roman realized what he was doing the line drawing them together was pulled too taut, flipping the lighter Bentley with it anchored to the roof. 

The line snapped, and Dom turned, yanking open the driver’s side door. The sudden motion ripped it from it’s hinges, sending Hobbs’ Jeep careening backwards. He did the same to the passenger door, sending off Shaw in the opposite direction, then turned to look over his shoulder, backing all the way up until the two cars still tethered to him flipped inwards, smashing into each other. 

The Charger, however, took just as much damage, the weight of the cars causing the back end to flip up and over, and Dom had a moment of confusion before he unbuckled his seatbelt and slid out of the car.

He grabbed the case and took off, darting down a side street. 

Letty was crawling out of her own car as she caught sight of him. She looked over at Tej who waved her on as he helped Ramsey climb out her window. “I’ll check on Roman and the rest. You go after Dom!”

Letty gave him a sharp nod before sprinting down the street. She saw Shaw pass ahead of her coming down from the opposite direction and slowed a little, panting as she came to the corner. Peering out she could see Dom and Deckard facing one another. They were saying something, but she couldn’t hear what.

Shaw’s hand went to his waist, then Dom lifted the pistol in his hand and fired twice. Letty felt her blood go cold, even knowing what she knew. It was almost like she didn’t even recognize the face of the man she loved. The face of her husband. 

He hadn’t noticed her yet though, turning away from Shaw’s body to walk the opposite direction. Letty watched him for a moment, debating if she should go after him, but she could hear sirens. EMTs were making their way to Shaw. She turned and ran back to the others. They had to beat it, before the cops arrived.


End file.
